


Balance Point

by summerstorm



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:38:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-2.11. Jeremy tries to talk to Tyler about the transformation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance Point

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softlyforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/gifts).



> With thanks to katayla for beta and greensilver for titling help!

During a lull in conversation, Jeremy looks around, scanning the assortment of people who frequent this place on Thursday night. It's not very surprising. He recognizes just about anyone—kind of what happens when you grow up in a place as small as Mystic Falls.

He recognizes some people playing darts in the far-off corner, wearing mostly dark but not acting as trashed as they usually did when he hung out with them. He hasn't kept up with Vicki's friends; they were never _his_ friends, so he doesn't know if they've just gotten over their drug phase or they're warming up or waiting to score or something. There's a girl from Jeremy's Trig class with them, and he's not sure if he wants to continue his habit of avoiding them more than he wants to go up and ask them how they're doing and make sure she's okay.

There's no way he's getting into a fight with his aunt around, though, so he takes his eyes off them and keeps scanning. Most people he recognizes from school, or seeing them at the stores and various other events. Jeremy realizes Matt is working tonight, which isn't odd but he hadn't spotted him before, and on the far end of the bar, there's Tyler. Matt's not really paying attention to him—he's working—and Tyler's not really paying attention to Matt—he's bent over a notebook, sketching something Jeremy can't make out from so far away—, but sometimes Matt walks by and they at least acknowledge each other.

It's complicated, he imagines, fixing your friendship with someone you picked a fight with that ended in someone's death and who's spending a conspicuous amount of time with your ex-girlfriend. He does wish Matt would realize the Sarah thing wasn't his fault, though.

"Where's Caroline?" Jeremy asks. He addresses the question at his table in general, but turns to face Elena before she replies.

"She's with Stefan," Elena says, widening her eyes meaningfully and using them to point at their aunt, who—yeah, probably shouldn't hear about Caroline's bunny-hunting adventures.

They're eating at the Grille with Bonnie and their aunt; Aunt Jenna said she felt like burgers, which basically means she didn't feel like cooking, or at least Jeremy's gotten used to interpreting it that way, since four times out of five it does mean that when they eat at the Grille. Elena's in a better mood since Stefan got out of the tomb and Elijah told her whatever it is Elijah told her to make her realize sacrificing herself wasn't her only "good" option. She hasn't admitted she was wrong yet, at least not in Jeremy's presence, but she's been acting normal around Bonnie and not like she resents her for locking her in the house.

He wonders if Elena realizes something like thirty percent of the point Bonnie's hanging out with her so often now is that they're all still keeping an eye on her. He hopes she doesn't; he knows it's not his business, but it felt kind of wrong when Elena and Bonnie weren't really talking.

"Is that new?" Jenna asks conversationally. "I didn't know they were friends."

"They have some stuff in common," Elena says easily, picking up a napkin.

"Stuff in common," Jenna says, skeptical. "Like—"

Elena shrugs; Jeremy guesses it's not that easy to come up with a hobby that will actually hold up, but he's spared from jumping in on a tangent by Bonnie.

"He lost—someone last year," Bonnie says carefully. "I guess Caroline reminds him of—of her?" She looks at Elena for guidance, and Elena shrugs out a go-ahead. "They get along well."

Jenna raises an eyebrow.

"She's not a replacement," Elena clarifies. "But she is apparently what Stefan looks for in friends."

"And you're fine with that." It's not a disbelieving tone, this time; it's the concerned guardian thing Jenna manages to pull off once in a blue moon.

Maybe he should go talk to Tyler. Elena says Caroline's been handling him fine, but it still seems like a really weird, horrible process to go through. And Jeremy is more than making up for every time Tyler's been a dick to him by not telling anyone Mason Lockwood is dead. After he let Damon kill him.

"Yeah," Elena says, shrugging and picking up her burger.

Jenna nods. "I wish everyone was a little more like that," she says, and Jeremy effectively zones out.

It's not hard to slip out at that point; all Jenna does is mouth _No alcohol_ at him. He makes his way to the bar without too much difficulty; the place is a little messy this late in the day, from too many people leaving chairs and tables moved and disorganized behind them.

"Hey," Jeremy says, as he slips into a stool just by Tyler.

Tyler looks up and stares at him the way he usually stares whenever Jeremy says something to him without prompting. It's like he's asking Jeremy to either say something worth his time or go the hell away. Jeremy's not sure it's much of an improvement from the way Tyler used to greet him—by barking _What the hell do you want?_ and _expecting_ Jeremy to go away—but he knows better than to take it personally.

"Are you alright?" he asks, and before Tyler scowls at him again, he rushes out, "I heard about your uncle. If there's anything I can do—"

"There isn't," Tyler snaps, and slams his notebook shut. "He's been missing for months now." After a few seconds of silence, and Jeremy can admit he brings it upon himself, Tyler barks, "What do you want?"

"Is it that horrible if I show some interest?"

"Horrible, no," Tyler says sharply. "Random and intrusive, yes."

"I wasn't trying to be intrusive," Jeremy points out, matter of fact. He wasn't. Sure, it's Tyler, and they have a long history of really not getting along. At all. But it's still a history. And at this point Jeremy's pretty sure he knows Tyler better than anyone except maybe Matt and Caroline and Tyler's mom. Caroline may have been there for the wolf transformation or whatever, but Jeremy's put up with so much more shit from Tyler than she has.

Which is to say, Jeremy's not being intrusive. He's just concerned, and he has a right _and_ good reason to be concerned. He doesn't know when he started giving a crap about Tyler Lockwood's general welfare, but he does now, and he doesn't think there's anything wrong with that.

"Doesn't mean you weren't," Tyler answers, turning away, and Jeremy decides to show him exactly what intrusive means.

"How was the full moon?" he asks casually. At Tyler's shocked stare, he adds, "I know about you. I don't just have a vague suspicion or something. You don't have to lie to me."

Tyler turns to face him, and it's—he doesn't look like he wants to murder Jeremy. That's kind of a relief. He just looks confused and kind of pissed off about being confused. "How do you even know this stuff?"

"I told you, my ancestor—"

"Yeah, yeah, cut the crap," Tyler says, but instead of saying _fuck off_ or something, he downs a shot Jeremy hadn't realized was there before and answers Jeremy's question. "It was a shitty night. Wanna play some pool?"

It's the closest to an _okay, you can stay_ Tyler's going to offer, so Jeremy takes him up on it. Besides. Jeremy can't say no to pool, even if it seems cruel to play someone who went through what Jeremy presumes is a lot of pain recently.

Turns out Tyler's surprisingly good at it for someone who underwent an odd-hours transformation into an animal just days ago.

"Shouldn't you be sore?" Jeremy says, masking it up as goading.

Tyler huffs out a laugh, setting down his cue stick and bending over slightly. Now that Jeremy pays attention, the motion's not as fluid as it seemed before. He actually looks kind of rigid, and one of his legs shifts backwards automatically every time it brushes against the edge of the table.

"Sore's a way to put it," Tyler says dismissively, and sinks a couple of balls at the same time. "And I heal fast."

"Not that fast," Jeremy says. It's an assumption, but it seems to be true from the way Tyler side-eyes him before turning his gaze back on the pool table. His next shot's not as good, and Jeremy drops the subject in favor of getting a good start on his turn.

He lets himself have a couple of normal successful shots before trying something he's only managed to do twice before. He's feeling optimistic, though, and it would be kind of cool if for once it went well when it might earn him a little bit of respect.

It—it actually does.

"Did you just curve that ball?" Tyler asks, like he's kind of incredulously amused by the idea of Jeremy being able to do that, which. He kind of has a point. Jeremy's just as surprised as Tyler is, but he's not about to own up to that.

"Yeah," he says, nodding, "yeah, I did."

He manages to get another two shots in before he loses fuel and sends a ball over the edge and none in. It takes seeing Tyler wince again when the back end of the cue stick hits his hip for Jeremy to realize he got completely sidetracked from his point.

"Why don't you want to talk about this?" Jeremy asks, genuinely baffled.

"About what?" Tyler asks over his shoulder.

"The— You know what you're not talking about."

"We're in public," Tyler says, tilting his head and giving a wide-eyed look like it's a completely obvious reason they shouldn't talk about this, which, well, is true, but that doesn't mean they can't talk about it at all. "And it was _horrifying_ , alright? I don't want to revisit that."

"I don't _want_ to remind you, but you realize you're gonna have to, right?"

"I'm going to—yes, I realize that," Tyler says, and the next ball he hits goes right off the table and rolls all the way to one of the restroom doors.

"Impressive," says Jeremy, because it's his only option other than apologizing. Tyler lets a long-suffering sigh through his nose, picks up his drink and slips into a chair at an empty table a couple steps away. "You're just gonna fold like that?" Jeremy asks. Tyler raises his glass as an answer.

The forgiving one-shouldered shrug is probably just Jeremy's imagination, but he draws out the chair opposite Tyler and sits down anyway.

"You should focus on the part where nobody got hurt," Jeremy says. "I mean, that must have taken—"

"Stop," Tyler cuts him off. It's very clear. It actually does stop Jeremy from saying anything else. "You don't want to know. I don't want to tell you, and you don't want to know." It seems like he's going somewhere with it, so Jeremy waits for a while. Tyler heads for the bar eventually, but he leaves his half-full drink behind, so Jeremy waits some more.

When Tyler gets back, he shoves his notebook into Jeremy's hands. "What's this?"

"Sketches," Tyler says. Jeremy opens the notebook halfway through, where it wants to go, and it's—it looks painful enough that he closes it right away, looking at Tyler with his mouth hanging slightly open, eyes flickering from the notebook cover to Tyler's face and arms and _shoulders_ and, jesus. "That's how much you don't want to know."

"That's not—" Jeremy begins, reconsidering what he's about to say as Tyler snatches his notebook back, but he says it anyway. "That's not true. You have to give me some leeway, man. You knew I'd freak if you just tossed that stuff at me."

"Yeah, well," Tyler says, "try going through it."

"I'm not saying that. I just—you don't know I can't get used to it. I could. I want to help."

"And by help you mean—research?" Tyler begins in a scathing tone. "Inspiration for your scrapbook?"

Jeremy interrupts him. "By help I mean help. With—whatever it is you need help with."

"I've got it covered, thanks," Tyler says flatly, taking a gulp of his drink.

It's more than a little difficult, talking to someone when you can't reveal most of the things you know. Jeremy can't say anything about Mason, and apparently Tyler doesn't know about all the vampires in town besides Caroline, so Jeremy can't say anything about that either, can't explain how he knows about the Lockwood werewolf gene or anything else.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You've been asking all night, why stop now?"

Jeremy breathes in and says, softly, "When you say you got it covered, how much of that is Caroline?" He knows Bonnie's been worried about how much time she was spending with Tyler, considering everything, and something feels off somehow. Like there's something Tyler doesn't know that he should definitely be aware of.

"She was—there," Tyler says. His voice is softer when he talks about her. Jeremy was afraid it would have the opposite effect. "When I turned, she was there."

"She was—" Jeremy echoes, and that's. That's bad. "You know legend says werew—" He stops himself and lowers his voice. "If you bite her, she could _die_."

Tyler's glass stops halfway to the table. He swallows. "Does she know that?"

"Pretty sure she does," Jeremy says.

"Holy— _Fuck_ , I can't believe she didn't tell me that," Tyler says, and _now_ he's seething again.

"I have... I have something," Jeremy begins, careful. He does have something. He has a ring that brings him back from supernatural-related death, and he could actually—he's not being Elena with her self-sacrificing shtick. He'd be fine if he helped out Tyler; it may take him longer to heal if Tyler attacks him, but that shouldn't happen anyway, and a bite wouldn't be potentially fatal. It'd just be a bite. And if it were fatal, Jeremy would come back to life, anyway. It's probably not the best idea to tell Tyler all of that, so it takes Jeremy a while to figure out how to phrase things without saying too much.

"You have something," Tyler echoes after a while, disbelieving now.

Jeremy snaps out of it. "Yeah. I have—I have this thing that I can use, like—if I helped you out during a full moon or whatever? If anything happened, I would be fine."

The look on Tyler's face turns considering. "Something like—"

"If I told you, it would— It's better if you don't know." It's true, too; if Tyler knows what keeps Jeremy safe is his ring, the wolf might know, too. Jeremy's not taking any chances.

"Everything's better if I don't know," Tyler says, throwing his hands and letting them fall palm up on the table. "How do you know about Caroline, anyway? Is that also something I shouldn't know?"

Jeremy makes an apologetic face. "Probably."

"Fine," says Tyler after a beat. "Fine." He stands up and walks back to the pool table, then looks over his shoulder and says, "You coming or what?"

"Yeah," Jeremy says, standing up, because he can't say no to pool, he just can't, "yeah."


End file.
